Elliott Bazzano, Ph.D

Elliott Bazzano is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Le Moyne College, where he teaches courses on Islam and comparative religion. Professor Bazzano’s research focuses on the interplay of Qur’anic interpretation, polemics, and mysticism as well as identity and pedagogy in religious studies scholarship. He co-edited Varieties of American Sufism (SUNY Press, 2020) with Marcia Hermansen. His article “Normative Readings of the Qur’an: From the Premodern Middle East to the Modern West,” appears in The Journal of the American Academy of Religion (2016) and “Muslim in the Classroom: Pedagogical Reflections on Disclosing Religious Identity” in Teaching Theology in Religion (2016). Bazzano published two articles in Religion Compass (2015) on Syrian polymath Ibn Taymiyya, “Ibn Taymiyya Radical Polymath, Part I: Scholarly Perceptions” and “Ibn Taymiyya, Radical Polymath, Part II: Intellectual Contributions.” He has authored a book chapter, “Research Methods and Problems,” in The Bloomsbury Companion to Islamic Studies (2013, 2015), and has forthcoming chapters on Qur’an interpretation, dating, and Islamic dietary guidelines Islam in Five Minutes (Bloomsbury, 2024). Bazzano serves at co-chair on the Steering Committee for the Study of Islam Section in the American Academy of Religion. In addition to finding inspiration in the mystical percolations of the Sufis, including coffee (pun intended), he finds his deepest wonder and joy in the miracle of his two daughters who offer him limitless possibilities for contemplating the mysteries of the universe.